The Social Life of Gender Dedicated to Saba Mahmood, whose brilliant scholarship has ­challenged and inspired our thinking about the meaning and goals of . CHAPTER Politicizing Gender 9 Gowri Vijayakumar and Katherine Maich

The previous chapters have examined how gendered norms, practices, ideologies, and institutions shape social life. This chapter explores how movements create changes in gender relations by tracing the history of feminist activism since the late 19th century. Feminist activism is typically described as involving three “waves”: the first wave of the late 1800s and early 1900s, when women organized for voting and other legal rights; the second wave of the 1960s and 1970s, when women organized for workplace equality and against sexual violence; and the third wave of the 1990s and beyond, when the category of “woman” increasingly became contested and feminists of color pushed for an understanding of gender and sexuality with attention to race, class, and colonialism. This chapter takes a different approach: Instead of describing feminist movements as consecutive waves, we will look at feminist movements as involving multiple “currents” that sometimes intersect, sometimes join, and sometimes emerge in tension with one another. The chapter shows that like other social movements, feminist activism has historically been influenced by and reproduced multiple social inequalities. Though the chapter primarily examines in the United States, it also looks at the global context for feminist activism and the powerful influence of feminists in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa on U.S. feminisms. The chapter concludes by showing how activists around the world challenge and transform gender relations in many ways, including in ways not typically defined as feminist.

Introduction

On Valentine’s Day in 2013, activists in 207 countries around the world gathered to protest violence against women. They called the march “One Billion Rising.” The event was designed as an activist response to recent inci- dents of violence against women that captured media attention and sparked outrage around the world—a gang rape in Steubenville, Ohio, in the United States; the shooting of Malala Yousafzai, an activist for girls’ education in northwestern Pakistan; and a gang rape and murder in New Delhi, India. It emphasized that by coming together and telling their stories, women could rise up against such violence. The famous organizer of One Billion Rising, Eve Ensler, who was also the author of the Vagina Monologues, explained in the newspaper The Guardian that the event aimed to “transform the mind- set that has normalized this violence, to bring women survivors into their

171 bodies, their strength, their determination, their energy and power and to dance up the will of the world to finally make violence against women unac- ceptable” (Ensler 2013). While One Billion Rising sought to emphasize women’s ability to over- come violence, feminist activist critics pointed out that the event silenced some women while elevating others, promoting a narrow vision of feminism. These critics suggested that by claiming that individual women could rise up against violence, One Billion Rising obscured the structural constraints they faced. For instance, a feminist from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) argued that it was insulting to expect raped women to turn up in the face of atrocities and in order to tell their stories to the rest of the world. An Iranian feminist pointed out, “Who is someone else to come to my country and claim to ‘help’ me by telling me to ‘rise’ above the experiences I have had?!” (Gyte 2013). These critiques articulated long-standing tensions in feminist activism. Previous chapters showed that even as feminists of the 1960s and 1970s— mostly white and middle class—challenged women’s subordination to their husbands, their “liberation” through professional work often depended on the subordination of other women. By contrast, women of color and ­working- class activists articulated the need for feminisms that incorporated race, class, sexuality, and colonialism—some rejecting the term feminist altogether. This chapter looks at how feminist activists have organized politically to both disrupt and reproduce the various power relations that are inextricably linked to gender. Focusing on a few specific movements and struggles that highlight key historical moments in feminist activism, the chapter explores the internal power dynamics of feminism as a social movement. It considers how the category of woman has served as a useful tool for organizing but also as a tool for exclusion. The chapter also uses the words of feminist activists to describe the multiple dimensions of feminist praxis—that is, the ways in which feminist critiques and theories are embodied and practiced through collective action. This praxis holds important lessons for the intellectual project of the sociology of gender that we reflect on at the end of the chapter.

Rethinking the : Waves and Currents

Scholars typically describe the history of feminist movements in the United States as involving three subsequent phases: first-, second-, and third-wave feminism. According to this model, from the 1840s through the 1920s, first-wave feminism focused on basic citizenship rights for women equal to those of men—such as suffrage and property rights. Then, from the 1960s to the 1990s, second-wave feminism focused on issues such as workplace inequalities, sexual harassment, reproductive rights (such as the right to choose an abortion), domestic violence, and rape. Finally, starting in the 1990s, third-wave feminism challenged the idea that women shared a single experience and instead expanded conversations within feminism to consider relationships between gender and race, class, sexuality, and colo- nialism. (See Figure 9.1.)

172 The Social Life of Gender Figure 9.1 Feminist Activism in Three “Waves”

Second First Wave Wave Third Wave 1840s–1920s 1960s–1990s 1990s-Present votes for women, workplace intersectionality, property rights, inequalities, Third World educational/ sexual violence, feminism, LGBT rights, occupational equality reproductive rights queer politics

Figure 9.2 Feminist Activism as a Set of Intersecting Currents

Women in trade unions and socialist movements Socialist feminisms

Women’s suffrage activists Intersectional and Third World feminisms

Abolitionist activists

Women in the Civil Rights Sex-positive Black Power movements feminisms

LGBTQ rights and queer politics

This chapter moves away from the metaphor of waves to conceptual- ize feminist politics as involving a series of intersecting and overlapping currents. Feminist currents describe particular movements and struggles around gendered power relations. For instance, currents include everything from to women’s suffrage to lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans- gender, and queer (LGBTQ) rights to Black feminism. While all currents are related to gender, they tie gender to different goals, ranging from sexual freedom to labor rights. In turn, they also adopt different strategies. These currents build on and enhance one another, but they can also diverge and come into conflict. At times, one current has obscured or even subordinated another current. Within each time period, we trace different currents and their relationships to one another. (See Figure 9.2.) Conventional histories often use a narrow definition of feminist move- ments that is focused on women’s collective action for legal, economic, or social rights as women (rather than as immigrants, laborers, or nationalists).

Chapter 9 | Politicizing Gender 173 Yet, women’s political struggles have taken many forms. Women around the world have played key roles in labor, communist, abolitionist, nationalist, LGBTQ, and anti-colonial movements. Conventional histories also often focus on North American and European feminist activism and pay less attention to histories of struggle around gender and sexuality in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Finally, activism around gendered power relations is not always waged by women but also by queer people, men, and so on. Though there is not enough room in this chapter to describe every form of activism linked to gender and sexuality, it will provide a framework to understand gender activism in various forms that defy the conventional framing of femi- nist movements.

Nineteenth- and Early 20th-Century Gender Activism in the United States

Though most people associate the in the United States with the 1960s and 1970s, women (and some men) had advocated around gender issues for many decades before the rise of feminism per se. In particu- lar, the currents of gender activism prior to the feminist movement centered on women’s voting rights and equality in the household, the abolition of slavery, and labor rights. These currents are often considered part of the first wave of feminism. One of the most critical moments in the women’s suffrage current occurred in July of 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention, led by women’s rights advocates Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and others. The convention was the first in U.S. history to focus on women’s equal rights and political participation. The delegates produced a Declaration of Rights and Sentiments that listed 18 points of grievance, all of which sought to promote equity between women and men. For instance, one grievance challenged the “tyranny” of men over women, while another argued in favor of wom- en’s right to vote. The primary author, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, amended Thomas Jefferson’s writing by affirming that “All men and women are created equal,” nearly 75 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The Seneca Falls Convention itself had been inspired by women’s involvement in advocating for the abolition of slavery. Indeed, Conven- tion organizer Elizabeth Cady Stanton first met Lucretia Mott, a founder of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in in 1840. Frustrated at the exclusion of women from the deliberations in London, Mott and Stanton began to discuss women’s rights and then decided to hold the Seneca Falls meeting. In turn, a number of prominent abolitionists attended the Seneca Falls Con- vention, including Frederick Douglass, the famous intellectual who had been enslaved as a young man, and Sarah and Angelina Grimké, white Southern sisters who renounced their family’s slaveholding practices to become abolitionists and fixtures in the women’s equality movement (McMillen 2008). Though women would not achieve political suffrage throughout the U.S. for another 75 years, the Seneca Falls Convention

174 The Social Life of Gender launched a series of conversations on social reforms to extend voting rights and end slavery. In addition to the anti-slavery movement and the women’s rights move- ment, perhaps the most prominent current of gender activism prior to the 1960s revolved around labor. Although unions are conventionally associated with men, women were also active in the U.S. labor movement, even in the 19th century, when women textile workers formed the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association to testify before the legislature about working condi- tions in 1843, and freed Black women formed a union of laundresses in Jackson, Mississippi in 1866. In 1909, many women workers participated in the “Uprising of the Thirty Thousand,” a mass strike by New York women garment workers. The strike compelled many factories to accept union demands, such as maintaining open doors and better fire escapes. Yet, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory held out. Then, in 1911, a fire at that factory killed 123 women and 23 men, who were trapped behind its locked doors. The fire drew attention to the hostile conditions garment workers faced and the importance of unionization. Rose Schneiderman, a Jewish socialist feminist and shop-floor unionist, survived the Triangle Shirtwaist fire and went on to fight for unionization by forging cross-class alliances. A 4’9’’ capmaker with flaming red hair and leg- endary speaking power, Schneiderman deftly connected the exploitation of male factory workers and young, immigrant female workers in textile mills (Orleck 1995). Thus, her advocacy helped draw attention to the 1912 textile workers’ strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in which over twenty thousand textile mill workers protested wage cuts and poor working conditions. Vying for an expansive working-class movement beyond the narrow vision that characterized men labor leaders at the time, Schneiderman famously stated, “The woman worker needs bread, but she needs roses, too.” In other words, workers fought for bread—meaning safer working conditions, medical care, a shorter workday, affordable housing, and food; the basic human needs for survival—and roses—access to culture and education, meaningful work, and equality; the enjoyment of life (Orleck 1995). This demand for “bread and roses” later took on a cultural life of its own in songs, slogans, poetry, and film. Schneiderman later became New York Secretary of Labor and a member of the National Labor Advisory Board. She advocated social secu- rity benefits for domestic workers, supported the unionization of restaurant workers, and championed labor regulation of women’s work in the home, not only the factory. While advocacy such as Schneiderman’s drew attention to the plight of women workers, they remained stymied by ongoing sexual harassment, labor exploitation, and norms about women’s positions in the home. As Ken Loach’s 2000 film, Bread and Roses, attests, many similar issues persist today. The film depicts the Los Angeles Justice for Janitors campaign of the late 1990s, focusing on how women janitors navigate sexual harassment, threats of deportation, and the effort for dignity at work. Nevertheless, women’s involvement in movements such as those for women’s suffrage, abolition, and labor persisted throughout the first half of the 20th century and helped lay the groundwork for the second wave of the U.S. feminist movement in the 1960s and 1970s.

Chapter 9 | Politicizing Gender 175 Feminisms in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s

In the 1960s and 1970s, women continued to be active in antiracist, civil rights, Black Power, LGBTQ, and labor movements as well as in women’s liberation organizations. While the more dominant feminist currents in this period continued to assume a white, middle-class subject, excluding women of color, working-class women, and others from feminist struggle, they also pioneered new ways of understanding women’s labor, bodies, and politics. In the 1960s and 1970s, feminists built on the long tradition of women’s labor activism in the United States. Women in leftist social movements of this era fought for workers’ rights and civil rights and protested the Vietnam­ War. Women were actively involved in student movements, civil rights organizations, and leftist reform groups such as Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) that actively fought for economic and racial justice in the United States. Yet women were often left out of these groups’ leadership circles and relegated to “feminine” caretaking tasks. Tensions mounted between women and their male allies in these movements. One example of the dismissive attitude of leftist men toward women’s liberation was their reaction to women’s feminist statements at the National Convention of SDS in 1967, where women led a “Women’s Liberation Work- shop.” Women advocated for communal childcare centers, contraception and abortion care, and a more aggressive commitment to women’s liberation within SDS. At the convention, many men reacted angrily. When the wom- en’s demands were published in the New Left Notes the next week, they were illustrated with a cartoon of a girl with earrings, a polka dot mini-dress, and matching visible undergarments, holding a sign saying, “We want our rights and we want them now,” (Echols 1989: 45; Rosen 2000). For the women activists, the cartoon was belittling and dismissive of their struggles. Another catalytic moment in the relationship between women and left- ist organizations occurred at the National Conference for the New Politics in Chicago. At the conference, 2,000 activists met to discuss a range of issues, including the role of Black Power and Black activists within the New Left. Women’s demands continued to be overlooked at the confer- ence. Ti-Grace Atkinson and Shulamith Firestone drafted a resolution demanding 51% of convention votes for women; an official endorsement of progressive marriage, divorce, and property laws; and reproductive rights for women. Their resolution was initially excluded from the conven- tion’s agenda. When they began reading their manifesto at the conference, the chairman patted Firestone on the head and said, “Move on little girl; we have more important issues to talk about here than women’s liberation,” (Echols 1989: 49). These insults eventually led to the formation of autono- mous radical women’s organizations dedicated to both class and race poli- tics and women’s liberation. Even as women were being marginalized within leftist organizations, new energy was building around feminist activism in the United States. As discussed in Chapter 3, in 1963, American feminist published , speaking to the loneliness and frustration of white

176 The Social Life of Gender American housewives caught in post–World War II norms of domesticity. Friedan urged women to seek more personally fulfilling lives outside the home, and many reacted enthusiastically. In 1966, Friedan became the first president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), a key organi- zation in feminist politics. Building on the insights of European feminists such as Simone de Beau- voir (see Chapter 7), the feminists of organizations such as NOW sought to understand why women were positioned as subordinate to men. Armed with the insight that “the personal is political,” these feminists worked on consciousness raising, exploring their experiences of sexual objectification in small groups to discover and undo patterns of power relations. Rather than imposing a top-down theory of power, consciousness-raising groups sought to build a theory of sexuality and women’s subordination from women’s own points of view (MacKinnon 1982: 535). Feminists also sought to regain control over their bodies and reproduc- tion. In 1966, women activists founded the Association to Repeal Abortion Laws (now NARAL Pro-Choice America), and in the following year, at least 25 state legislatures discussed abortion reform bills (Morgen 2002: 4). Femi- nist networks around the country worked to make abortion legal and safe. In 1973, in a major success for these activists, the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade ordered states to lift restrictions on abortions until the third trimester of pregnancy (with exceptions for maternal health). This landmark decision provided new momentum for activists around the country, who had been advocating for women’s control over their health. In 1970, the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, a group of 12 femi- nist activists, published a pamphlet called Women and their Bodies. The book aimed to subvert the scientific expertise of male physicians about women’s bodies by providing accessible women’s health information. Built on wom- en’s own accounts and experiences, the book was immensely popular and influential. After selling 350,000 copies, it was published as Our Bodies, Our- selves in 1973 (Morgen 2002; Norsigian 2005). Our Bodies, Ourselves articu- lated the core themes of a broader feminist health movement: In the 1970s, and especially after Roe v. Wade, some fifty feminist health clinics opened around the country to provide abortions and feminist reproductive health care (Newman 2007).1 In the 1970s, the Comparable Worth Movement also challenged insti- tutionalized gender discrimination in the labor market. Feminists involved in the Comparable Worth Movement sought to revalue traditionally femi- nine occupations, such as nursing, teaching, and other “pink-collar” jobs (see Chapter 8). Launched by mainly white liberal feminists, the movement demanded an equal salary for men and women with comparable skills. They asked why tree trimmers should earn more money than childcare provid- ers or why electricians (an occupation largely dominated by men) should earn more than librarians (an occupation largely dominated by women). Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, scholars, activists, and women workers continued to critique gender pay gaps, the glass ceiling, and occupational sex segregation. They noted that the subjective nature of job evaluations opened opportunities for discrimination, and they critiqued a general devaluation of skills considered to be women’s work (such as caregiving, nurturing, and other soft skills embedded in forms of emotional labor).

Chapter 9 | Politicizing Gender 177 Similarly, the Wages for Housework campaign directly took on issues of labor and work and had active chapters internationally and in New York. By demanding wages in exchange for housework, the campaign positioned housewives and women who worked outside the home in the same cate- gory: as women workers whose labor was devalued. By drawing this link, the campaign positioned all women as working women and demanded workers’ rights for women in all forms of work. Wages for Housework also made a symbolic claim to radical in all areas of life. As Silvia Federici, an Italian Marxist feminist and one of the founders of the movement, wrote,

Wages for housework is only the beginning, but its message is clear: from now on they have to pay us because as females we do not guarantee anything any longer. We want to call work what is work so that eventually we might rediscover what is love and create what will be our sexuality, which we have never known. (Federici [1975] 2012: 20)

Organizations such as NOW maintained a middle-class white orienta- tion. Many of the organization’s aims, such as winning the right for women to work outside the home, were irrelevant to working-class women and women of color who already worked for low wages and whose occupations—such as domestic labor—were excluded from campaigns for equal pay. Middle- class also tended to overlook ways in which class and race operated intersectionally with gender in producing oppressive social rela- tions. However, white housewives and professional women were not the only people mobilizing around gender inequality during this period.

Black Women’s Organizing: “A Woman’s Place Is in the Struggle” Black women were very active in the Civil Rights movement and in shaping movements such as the Black Panther Party (BPP), which organized and mobilized out of Oakland, California, to protest police oppression and brutality against Black communities. As Salamishah Tillet (2015) notes, though mainstream white American media tended to depict the Black Pan- thers as militant Black men clad in leather coats with berets on their heads and rifles tucked beneath their arms, in fact, by the early 1970s, two-thirds of BPP members were women. The first woman Black Panther, Joan Tarika Lewis, utilized her artwork to depict women as strong warriors and heroes of the community, which opened up space for women in the struggle (Martin 2014). Likewise, Ericka Huggins, the first woman to establish a BPP chapter and the widow of slain BPP leader John Huggins, explained that the women who were drawn to the Panthers

were all feminists; not in the way that feminism is looked at today, in which you have to go step by step in order to claim yourself as a feminist. But we generally believed in the political, social, economic and sexual equality of women and girls. (Tillet 2015)

178 The Social Life of Gender However, Black women struggled with their male counterparts in the movement over gender issues. As in the (white) leftist organizing discussed above, gender in the BPP often took a backseat to broader concerns of racial justice and class, which were central to the Panthers’ platform. Ten- sions also emerged around whether women should bear arms as part of the movement. Furthermore, toward the end of the BBP’s most active years in the late 1960s, the police and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began to target male Black Panthers through violent attacks. In turn, women Black Panthers kept alive a strong organizing base in Oakland. They struggled for equal housing, the Free Breakfast for All program, liberation schools, and politi- cal education classes designed to end gender bias in the Black community. As the state targeted men, women also moved from their original positions behind the scenes into central BPP leadership (Tillet 2015). These Black Panther women organized for anti-racist movement build- ing that included community health and safety issues affecting women and children. Black Panther women’s articles, circulated among membership, include photographs of women members smiling with fists raised in front of the central office in Oakland, proudly standing underneath the words, “The Sky’s the Limit.” These images demonstrate a sisterhood united against their shared racialized, classed, and gendered oppression. In the 1970s, other Black women and women of color also advocated against white biases within the feminist movement. In 1970, the Black Wom- en’s Alliance, which had originated with women members of the anti-racist SNCC, grew frustrated with racism within the feminist movement. They joined a group of Puerto Rican feminists to form the Third World Women’s Alliance. The group built connections to feminists around the world and promoted unity among Black and brown feminists. In 1973, the Comis- ión Femenil Mexicana Nacional (CFMN, National Commission of Mexican Women) was formed by a group of women who felt that gender had been marginalized within the Chicano movement. As feminist efforts gained momentum in the middle and late 1970s, women of color continued to demand greater attention to their concerns. The United Nations proclaimed 1975 the International Women’s Year and, as part of a series of events intended to promote gender equality, Congress provided funding for a National Women’s Conference in 1977 in Houston, Texas. The conference included many prominent feminists and women politicians, such as three First Ladies, Coretta Scott King, Betty Friedan, and Maya Angelou, among others, but it paid relatively little attention to women of color. In response, a group of Black feminists formed the Black Women’s Agenda, which developed the Black Women’s Action Plan. At the conference, women who faced racial injustice joined together in supporting the Action Plan, creating a shared position as women of color (Ross 2011). Another influential group of Black socialist feminist activists, the Com- bahee River Collective, argued for new formations of political struggle that acknowledged the interlocking nature of their oppression along lines of race, class, gender, and sexuality. The Combahee River Collective’s statement, part of which appears below, demanded a feminist politics that acknowledged the interlocking nature of oppression.

Chapter 9 | Politicizing Gender 179 The Combahee River Collective Statement (1978)

We are a collective of Black feminists who have of our need as human persons for autonomy. been meeting together since 1974. During that This may seem so obvious as to sound simplis- time, we have been involved in the process of tic, but it is apparent that no other ostensibly defining and clarifying our politics, while at the progressive movement has ever considered same time doing political work within our own our specific oppression as a priority or worked group and in coalition with other progressive seriously for the ending of that oppression. . . . organizations and movements. The most gen- In the practice of our politics, we do not eral statement of our politics at the present time believe that the end always justifies the means. would be that we are actively committed to Many reactionary and destructive acts have struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, been done in the name of achieving “correct” and class oppression, and see as our particu- political goals. As feminists, we do not want lar task the development of integrated analysis to mess over people in the name of politics. and practice based upon the fact that the major We believe in collective process and a non- systems of oppression are interlocking. The hierarchical distribution of power within our synthesis of these oppressions creates the con- own group and in our vision of a revolution- ditions of our lives. As Black women, we see ary society. We are committed to a continual Black feminism as the logical political move- examination of our politics as they develop ment to combat the manifold and simultaneous through criticism and self-criticism as an oppressions that all women of color face. . . . essential aspect of our practice. . . . As Black Our politics initially sprang from the feminists and lesbians, we know that we have shared belief that Black women are inherently a very definite revolutionary task to perform valuable, that our liberation is a necessity not as and we are ready for the lifetime of work and an adjunct to somebody else’s . . . [but] because struggle before us.

In short, just as white feminist currents pushed against exclusion in labor and New Left advocacy, Black feminists and feminists of color pushed for greater representation in both racial justice and feminist movements.

Speaking, Singing, and Performing Gender: Creatively Challenging the “Relations of Ruling” Feminists in the 1960s and 1970s also sought to find creative spaces through which to critique existing power relations. Feminist artists and scholars thus became as much a part of political movement building as those marching and demonstrating. Following Virginia Woolf’s call in 1929 for women to forge “a room of one’s own” (claim their own literary voices), women songwriters of this era expressed their politics through their writing and performance. Nota- ble examples include Roberta Flack’s soul and gospel-turned-pop hits and Laura Nyro and Carole King’s folk songs, which championed equal pay for equal work and dealt with themes of pregnancy, birth control, and women’s freedom. Joan Baez delivered strong messages of social justice via acoustic

180 The Social Life of Gender guitar, including covers of Chile’s ethnomusicologist and folklorist Violeta Parra, while Aretha Franklin’s 1967 hit, “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man,” urged gender equality and recognition as Franklin crooned, “A woman’s only human, this you should understand.” Sounding out a call for respect, ­Franklin declared, “She’s not just a plaything, she’s flesh and blood—just like her man!” And in a track on Joni Mitchell’s 1976 album Hejira, “Amelia,” a tribute to the lost pilot Amelia Earhart, Mitchell soulfully identified with the pilot’s longing for another world through musical parallels of guitar strings and “songs so wild and blue.” She mused about Earhart, “A ghost of aviation, she was swallowed by the sky—or by the sea, like me, she had a dream to fly.” The historically white, masculine, and elite institution of academia also began to respond to feminist organizing. The first university-level women’s studies courses were offered in the late 1960s at Cornell, and in the early 1970s, women’s, gender, or feminist studies programs, departments, and concentrations spread rapidly. There are now over 400 such programs in the U.S. and over 900 globally. Interdisciplinary in nature, these programs draw from the humanities and social sciences. Many offer courses in sexuali- ties, LGBTQ studies, queer and , and feminist perspectives on biology, history, literature, technology, and research methods. The insti- tutionalization of these departments and the creation of doctoral degree– granting women’s studies programs in the 1960s and 1970s demonstrated the importance of gender as a serious topic of study and a critical lens on the social world. Nevertheless, as feminists, Black Panthers, LGBTQ movements, and singers fought for liberation in the 1960s and 1970s, dominant feminist cur- rents continued to assume a white, middle-class subject. Such activists often assumed that the concept of woman provided a common denominator across multiple experiences. Yet, their idea of woman continued to exclude women of color, working-class women, and others. These dynamics would continue to be key points of tension in the 1980s and 1990s.

The 1980s and 1990s: Critiques of White Feminism, Queer Politics, and Transnational Solidarities

In the 1980s and 1990s, many of the currents of feminism that had addressed race, class, sexuality, and colonialism gathered force and came into direct conflict with the white middle-class currents that had previously been domi- nant. Women of color had organized to bring race and class to the fore- front of feminist activism since the 1970s, but they often remained excluded from the dominant currents of feminist organizing. Indeed, women of color faced a triple exclusion: sexism from antiracist activists and racism and clas- sism from middle-class white feminists. It was not until the early 1990s that mainstream feminist activism began to incorporate an intersectional perspective that included questions of race, class, sexuality, and colonial- ism. Intersectionality (recall Chapter 2) destabilized the one-dimensional understanding of gender that had run through dominant feminisms in the 1960s and 1970s. As white feminists responded to challenges from multiple

Chapter 9 | Politicizing Gender 181 quarters, many came to rethink the category of woman, highlighting that it was produced in relation to multiple intersecting dynamics. Feminist scholars of color were active in the movement to bring race and class analysis to feminism. In 1981, for instance, two Chicana femi- nists, Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa, published an edited anthology of writings from women of color called This Bridge Called My Back. The book included reflections from diverse women of color in the United States. It challenged the dominance of white middle-class experience in feminist activ- ist and intellectual realms and argued for a politics that took into account the divisions and inequalities among women rather than assuming that they shared a single experience. The editors called for a new way of thinking about feminist, anti-racist, class, and sexuality politics as dynamically inter- connected. They also moved beyond typical academic writing by includ- ing poetry, essays, and fiction; emphasizing third world women’s subjective experiences; and using accessible language. Feminist scholars of color also placed their activism in an international context. In 1983, two graduate students at the University of Illinois, Chandra Talpade Mohanty and Ann Russo, organized a conference called “Common Differences: Third World Women and Feminist Perspectives.” The confer- ence and the resulting book, Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism (Mohanty, Russo, and Torres 1991) provided a transnational perspective on feminism, seeking to link the struggles of women of color in the U.S. and Europe to the struggles of those in Latin America, Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. We will discuss their work further in Chapter 10. Meanwhile, women of color activists also challenged dominant white feminism more directly. Some women of color even questioned the term feminist as an overly narrow conception of what women’s concerns looked like. For example, Alice Walker, in her book, In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens, famously wrote, “Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender” and celebrated the womanist, “a black feminist or feminist of color” who “Loves music. Loves dance. Loves the moon. Loves the Spirit. Loves love and food and roundness. Loves struggle. Loves the Folk. Loves herself” (1983: xi–xii). A key catalytic moment in the consolidation of intersectional feminism came in 1991 with the Senate hearings preceding the confirmation of the Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, described in detail in Chapter 2. When Anita Hill, a Black woman, testified that Thomas, who was also Black, had sexually harassed her while he had been her supervisor, controversy erupted. Many Black leaders accused Hill of betraying the Black commu- nity by bringing an accusation against a Black man who had the opportu- nity to gain power within white political structures. Meanwhile, many white women feminists supported Hill, but without acknowledging the place of racism in Hill’s vulnerability to harassment and in her treatment by sena- tors during the hearings. The case pointed to the gaps within both domi- nant anti-racism (which assumed a Black masculine subject) and dominant feminism (which assumed a white middle-class feminine subject), neither of which could speak to Hill’s experience (Crenshaw 1991). Soon after Hill’s testimony, Rebecca Walker, a 22-year-old student at Yale University, wrote an essay in Ms. Magazine titled “Becoming the Third Wave,” in which she called for an invigoration of feminist activism:

182 The Social Life of Gender I write this as a plea to all women, especially the women of my gen- eration: Let Thomas’ confirmation serve to remind you, as it did me, that the fight is far from over. Let this dismissal of a woman’s experi- ence move you to anger. Turn that outrage into political power. . . . I am not a feminist. I am the Third Wave. (1992: 41)

Rebecca Walker’s call reflected the growing challenge to the assump- tion that white middle-class women’s concerns were a default experience. This challenge had developed alongside white middle-class feminism in the 1970s, but by 1992, it had attained new visibility and become influential in both academic feminist scholarship and mainstream feminist organizations.

The Politics of Sexuality in the 1980s and 1990s In the 1960s, there was considerable tension around the participation of LGBTQ people in the feminist movement. While the 1969 Stonewall riots (see Chapter 5) helped catalyze LGBTQ politics and spark a newly invigo- rated gay liberation movement, the relationship between gay liberation and women’s liberation politics was not always smooth. In the late 1960s, Betty Friedan at NOW had been uncomfortable with lesbians participating in the feminist movement and termed them a “lavender menace,” leading many les- bians to leave the organization. Eventually, in 1971, in response to pres- sure from the few remaining lesbian members, NOW passed a resolution acknowledging the oppression of lesbians as a feminist issue. In the 1980s and 1990s, the dominant, white currents within feminism also began to embrace new thinking about sexuality and sexual freedom, and the inclusion of sex workers’ rights in feminist politics became less fraught than it was during the “Sex Wars,” as discussed in Chapter 5. Sex workers’ rights activism, which had roots in the 1970s and 1980s, gained broader acceptance. Anthologies of writings by sex workers published in the 1990s argued that sex work was like any other work and that sex workers had a key role to play in feminist politics (Chapkis 1997; Delacoste and Alexander 1998). These accounts offered a more nuanced view of sex work as a pos- sible site of violence but also a site of self-expression, creativity, connection, and pleasure—or simply as another way to make a living. LGBTQ politics also gained momentum in the 1980s and 1990s. In the period after the 1969 Stonewall Riots, marches for gay liberation took place around the country, making LGBTQ people’s demands more visible at the local level. The first LGBTQ March on Washington in 1979 marked a new era of LGBTQ organizing aimed at transforming national policy; an esti- mated 75,000 to 125,000 LGBTQ people attended (Ghaziani and Baldessari 2011). The march marked a step on the way to forming a shared national LGBTQ identity that sought to unite multiple groups—gay, lesbian, trans- gender, bisexual, and queer people. LGBTQ movements achieved some legal gains in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1982, Wisconsin was the first U.S. state to outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. In 1993, the Department of Defense issued its “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which prohibited the military from excluding potential recruits on the basis of sexual orientation, so long as they did not engage in homosexual acts or talk publicly about homosexuality. This policy

Chapter 9 | Politicizing Gender 183 opened up some space for inclusion while still severely limiting the partici- pation of LGBTQ people in the military. LGBTQ movements also suffered major setbacks. For example, in 1996, the Defense of Marriage Act signed by President Bill Clinton officially defined legal marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Since then, LGBTQ movements have gained important cultural visibility, especially through movements for marriage equality, as discussed in Chapter 5. Nevertheless, exclusions persisted within the LGBTQ movement. For example, lesbians, working-class LGBTQ people, LGBTQ people of color, and transgender people in general were often marginalized from white male LGBTQ politics in San Francisco (Armstrong 2002). While such groups advocated for same-sex marriage, transgender and gender queer people hoped instead to promote alternative family arrangements and move beyond marriage altogether. Similarly, LGBTQ people of color and working-class LGBTQ people felt that white gay male advocacy did not adequately address the exclusions they faced (Hunter 2013). LGBTQ movements often worked in tandem with other currents of the feminist movement. However, there were continuing debates among lesbian and queer feminists and straight feminists about how the two cur- rents should relate to one another. Some theorists saw sexuality politics and women’s movements as intrinsically interconnected (e.g., Rich 1980), while others saw sexuality as requiring a distinct political space (e.g., Rubin 1997). Sometimes queer feminists simply felt overlooked within dominant femi- nist spaces. These tensions would continue as LGBTQ politics gained more momentum in the 2000s.

The Sounds of Feminist Politics in the 1980s and 1990s: Women as Cultural Producers Toward the end of the 20th century, women musicians expressed their feminist claims through alternative kinds of performance, songwriting, and radical messaging. Women’s involvement in underground punk, post-punk, and indie rock movements in Washington, DC and the Pacific Northwest through the “riot grrrl movement” dealt with feminist themes of , gender relations, power, authority, women’s rights, and “subversive” sexu- alities. Indicative of the many variants of feminism in this period, these movements blended feminist, LGBTQ, gender queer, and trans protest and politics through zines (independently produced magazines), poetry, and music. Their activism challenged masculine domination in mainstream cul- tural production rather than directly targeting the state with rights-based claims as had earlier waves of feminist protest. This movement was built on, and also inspired, fellow underground punk feminist bands in the UK, Brazil, Australia, and other countries. Avant-garde, minimalist, and androgynous fashion characterized sec- tors of the moment, and women pushed traditional narrative songwriting boundaries and challenged musical form and content by singing, chant- ing, shrieking, screaming, and otherwise producing discordant, power- ful sounds. London-based Siouxsie Sioux of Siouxsie and the Banshees, for instance, urged a collective identity rather than singling out their lead singer in the late 1970s, and though Siouxsie later became known for

184 The Social Life of Gender dramatic makeup and elaborate costumes on stage, Steward and Garratt (1999) note that “[f]or a long time, the Banshees refused to be interviewed separately and resisted using pictures of themselves on record-sleeves or in press ads” (31–32). In the 1990s, the band Bikini Kill infamously coined the term , which soon took on a discursive life of its own. Bikini Kill and other feminist punk and rock bands took on this challenge in a more raucous way than traditional women folk, pop, and blues artists of previous gen- erations, reflecting Mary Katzenstein’s (1998) observation that feminist pro- tests involve an “effort to reinterpret, reformulate, rethink, and rewrite the norms and practices of society and the state,” (17). Several independent record labels, including K Records in Olympia, Washington, opened up new space for women in music to critique inequality, express political and social frustrations, and reshape the gender politics of the industry. Riot grrrls also demanded an end to masculine domination, pushed for equal participation in music and broader society, and offered other critiques of social and eco- nomic relations of exchange. The riot grrrl movement exemplified the contested nature of the institu- tion of music and pointed to Katzenstein’s conception of a politics of identity in which feminists ask, “Who am I? Who are we as women? In what ways are women different from men, and from each other? In what ways do gendered identities and experiences shape political understandings and authorize dif- ferent groups to speak?” (1998: 18). Regarding the significance of women’s creative politics, Sue Steward and Sheryl Garratt (1999), authors of Signed, Sealed, and Delivered: True Life Stories of Women in Pop, conclude, “Women are not condemned to be passive, swooning onlookers while the boys have all the fun on stage.” Indeed, the riot grrrl movement and beyond demonstrate that the creative nature of protest and politics is alive and well in collective feminist expression.

Thinking Globally: Transnational Feminisms and North–South Alliances Another important shift in feminism in the 1980s and 1990s was a stronger relationship—as well as more critical debates—between Western feminists and postcolonial feminists. Throughout the 20th century, women’s participation in anti-colonial movements in South Asia and Africa created space to articulate claims to gender justice as women activists grew frus- trated with the failure of newly independent states to address gender con- cerns in meaningful ways (see Chapter 10). Postcolonial and anti-colonial women’s movements were extremely diverse. Geraldine Heng (1997) argues that, because of its complex relationships to nationalism and modernity, third world feminism is “a chimerical, hydra-headed creature, surviving in a plethora of lives and guises” (30). While a small number of women in the West provided support to ­women’s anti-colonial and postcolonial activism in other nations through- out the 20th century, transnational feminist partnerships grew wider and more varied in the 1990s, with women from Africa, Asia, and Latin America becoming increasingly linked to transnational feminist advocacy net- works (Keck and Sikkink 1998). In these alliances, which we refer to as

Chapter 9 | Politicizing Gender 185 , international partnerships sometimes enabled grass- roots feminist groups to utilize international pressure to influence their national states or other targets. Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink (1998) call this ability to reach around the home state the boomerang effect. For example, sweat- shop workers in Mexico who were unable to directly influence their employers to improve working conditions garnered support by reaching out to students in the United States to put pressure on retailers that buy their products. Transnational feminism also involved conflicts and tensions. Feminists from postcolonial contexts critiqued their Western counterparts for domi- nating the agenda and addressing them in ways they found condescend- ing and patronizing. At the United Nations Conferences on Women in Mexico in 1975 and Copenhagen in 1980, activists struggled to find com- mon ground. Keck and Sikkink (1998) argue that at the Nairobi United Nations Conference on Women in 1985, violence against women became a central organizing theme that allowed transnational feminist networks to bridge their differences and move past this impasse. The topic of violence bridged a wide range of concerns relevant to distinct settings, from dowry killings to political prisoners to domestic violence and marital rape. Even sex-selective abortion and infanticide could be defined as violence against women. Violence also suggested bodily harm to vulnerable people, a cause around which diverse constituencies could unite. Thus, diverse groups of feminists could mobilize around the issue of violence in distinct settings, supporting each other’s struggles while addressing the particularities of their political, social, and cultural contexts. This adaptation demonstrated how Western feminists slowly began to shift in the face of critiques of feminists from the Global South—even if the alliance between the two continued to be fraught.

The 2000s and Beyond: Institutionalization, Backlash, and New Directions

In the 2000s, feminism took even more complex directions. On one hand, feminism faced backlash from those who considered it annoying or irrel- evant. On the other hand, the idea of women’s rights became a mainstay of institutions from the state to employers. Meanwhile, new currents extended feminist ideas to a wider variety of movements and began to bridge the wide variety of issues faced by feminists around the world.

The F Word: The Feminist Backlash By the 2000s, public debate increasingly positioned feminism as irrele- vant and outdated. After the legal advances of the 1970s and the social shifts of the 1980s and 1990s, which brought women into professions previously dominated by men, the word feminist was increasingly cast as old-fashioned or extreme. Feminist critics, however, argued that these shifts had occurred in the realm of cultural attitudes but not in the realm of practice: Women were still overrepresented in underpaid professions and subject to sexual harassment and violence.

186 The Social Life of Gender In 2003, journalist Anna Quindlen (2003) responded to the growing dis- missal of feminism in an article in the mainstream magazine Newsweek that asked a provocative question: Do we still need the “F word” (feminism)? She argued that feminism is indeed still necessary, as contemporary U.S. society is marked by sexual harassment, inequality in the workplace, gender-based violence, and eating disorders. Citing a study from Duke University that found women students spending an enormous amount of effort, money, and time on clothes, shoes, workout programs, and diets (recall Chapter 3) as well as “hiding their intelligence in order to succeed with their male peers,” Quindlen concluded that the F word is not an “expletive, but an ideal—one that still has a way to go.” Critics from within feminist movements pointed out that the progress still left to be made by feminism included a recommitment to class-based justice, arguing that contemporary cultural shifts in feminism supported forms of neoliberal capitalism that earlier feminists would have rejected (Eisenstein 2005; Fraser 2007, 2009). In 2009, for instance, the feminist philosopher Nancy Fraser published an essay called “Feminism, Capital- ism and the Cunning of History.” She argued that whereas feminist move- ments of the 1960s and 1970s had woven together economic, cultural, and political dimensions of gender injustice, feminist cultural claims had grown separated from demands for economic equality. In particular, Fraser worried about the assumption that work could be liberating for women. She was also concerned about framing jobs such as those in the maquilas—discussed in Chapter 8—as a path to freedom. Today, she suggested, corporations could absorb women as low-waged labor and argue that giving women work empowered them and advanced gender equality. While certain elements of second-wave feminism had succeeded, these critics argued, a broader vision of feminist social justice had been left behind.

Bridging Locations, Interests, and Movements Transnational feminist partnerships continued to grow in the 2000s. However, transnational feminisms faced tensions as they sought to bridge constituencies and avoid reproducing unequal power relations. Despite the successes of transnational networks in pushing some feminist concerns onto the agenda of the United Nations, international donors, and national states, inequalities persisted among feminist groups positioned differently in the world economy. The relationships between feminisms and globalization can be complex, and globalization can both help and hurt feminist causes. Manisha Desai (2007), for instance, showed that globalization can further women’s subordi- nation by supporting war and neoliberal economic policies, but women can also draw on economic and cultural opportunities that emerge within glo- balization to improve their lives and further their agency. At the same time, within transnational feminist networks, especially those connected to the United Nations, people who speak English and who are formally educated might become privileged in providing gender expertise, excluding other feminists in the process. The growing number of global, feminist non-governmental organizations (NGOs) embodies these unequal relations of power within transnational

Chapter 9 | Politicizing Gender 187 feminist partnerships. Many organizations in the Global South, which began as protest organizations without any funding, have now become NGOs, which rely on funding from donors in order to exist. This has, in many cases, meant that they cannot be as political or radical as they would like, since they are now reliant on external sources (usually from the U.S. and Europe) for support. In an ethnography of Brazilian feminist organizations, Millie Thayer (2009) provided an in-depth look at power relations within such transnational feminist networks. Focusing on two organizations, one middle-class urban NGO and one rural women’s movement, both of which received funding from North America, Thayer argued that Brazilian femi- nists were able to use tools from the West to further their agenda even as Western concerns might eclipse their own. The middle-class urban NGO was “expert” and professionalized and was able to connect with donors from the Global North in a way that the rural women’s movement members were not. Though the middle-class NGO staff were concerned about issues that might be thought of as conventionally women’s issues—such as violence against women—the rural women’s movement was concerned with issues around class and labor. Their definitions of “women’s” issues were thus very different. Thayer showed, though, that these inequalities did not mean that solidarity was impossible. The rural social movement was able to define its own politics in collaboration with the urban NGO staff. It was also able to use the discourse of gender and women’s issues from the West as a tool for challenging gendered power relations in their local setting, drawing on Joan Scott’s feminist theories to build their own agenda for struggle. Yet, Thayer concluded, just as the rural social movement needed the North American funding agency, so too did the funding organization need them. It was by funding a movement so obviously poor and rural that the North American organization was able to retain its own legitimacy. The role of NGOs has been a major point of debate among feminists, par- ticularly in their relationships to grassroots activists. Sonia Alvarez (1999, 2009) provides another perspective on the complexities of feminist NGOs in Latin America. In her 1999 article on the “feminist NGO ‘boom,’” Alvarez argues that “NGOization” was a key challenge to feminist movements, causing them to become professionalized and disconnected from their roots. Often, feminist NGOs positioned themselves as “gender experts,” turning women’s concerns into technical problems of expertise rather than issues for debate and partici- pation from grassroots women. State governments and international organiza- tions saw NGOs as replacements for soliciting input from a diversity of actors and activists. Finally, governments also used NGOs to carry out programs, making it difficult for NGOs to be critical of state policies. Instead, NGOs became dependent on the state and carried out technical projects rather than challenging the government and offering a more radical version of feminism. However, Alvarez also showed that NGOs could play complex, hybrid roles in feminist movements. Their work varied across national contexts, depending on the state’s particular relationship to NGOs. If NGOs could resist the tendency to become professionalized and sustain their connec- tions to feminist movements, they could draw on the resources of inter- national funding and state attention while also advancing the agenda of grassroots feminists. In her 2009 article, “Beyond NGOization?” Alvarez is more hopeful, suggesting that in Latin America, the feminist movement is

188 The Social Life of Gender now moving beyond NGOization. She also shows that NGOs do impor- tant movement work, building links across feminist groups and helping to articulate shared concerns. Alvarez’s examples of transnational feminist linkages show that there are no simple models for bridging power divides in women’s mobilization.

New Struggles over Sexuality around the World The global LGBTQ movement is another example of these kinds of complexities. Just as the category of woman is contested in transnational feminisms, the category of gay has been challenged in various contexts. Gay is just one of a number of sexual identity categories people use around

Negotiating Alliances in the Sexual Minority Movement A Perspective from an Indian Activist

Akkai Padmashali is a human rights activist, category. But who is vulnerable? There is this transgender woman, and former sex worker based demand for gay marriages. But for working in Bangalore, India. class sexual minorities, marriage is not impor- As a transgender person, you face it tant. Identity is important; your livelihood is every second, every minute, you face that dis- important. Your social rejection is important. crimination, that untouchability, that stigma. You are a person on the street, struggling daily, You are completely marginalized. You are doing sex work and begging daily, to fulfill oppressed. Why? . . . Because of your gender your bread and butter, for clothing and hous- orientation. . . . ing. How many upper-class sexual minorities [Class] is a huge barrier between com- could understand these issues? . . . munities, because when you talk about sexual [I]t could be Dalit groups, women’s minorities, there are people from upper-class groups, disabled groups, many, many commu- backgrounds as well, and then the major- nity movements of people who are oppressed ity are from working class backgrounds. . . . due to their class, caste, gender, sexuality, [T]en years ago I had been to an upper class ethnicity, race, etc. We, as a movement-based sexual minority platform . . . and people were organization, we were trying to build up net- ­laughing, because I was wearing low-cost works with those movements. . . . It’s kind of ­slippers. I was not dressed properly, you know? a buy and take [give and take]. Where you . . . And people were laughing! . . . If you did are coming to a platform to understand each not speak English, you were discriminated other. . . . So I think that’s the moment where against in that meeting. Then I felt that this was we are now. We will definitely bring about not my space. . . . social change. Now any human rights viola- My long vision is, how are we going to tions happening against sexual minorities, we fight back, and how are we going to battle are here to show solidarity. . . . We are trying the class discrimination happening within the to build up a new world of all these oppressed community and outside the community? How communities. . . . When a person or a com- are we going to bring this diversity of identi- munity has been rejected because of ethnicity, ties to a platform? . . . People from upper class class, caste, sexuality, or gender, that is against backgrounds do exist [in] the sexual minority social justice.

Chapter 9 | Politicizing Gender 189 the world. Some groups prefer to use alternative conceptualizations, from two-spirit to kothi, and reject the term gay. At the same time, gay identity has been increasingly internationalized, and activists in various locations must use categories such as gay and lesbian to access dominant networks and monetary resources. Sometimes, they can leverage those resources to influence their national governments (Altman 1996). Global feminist and LGBTQ movements have also highlighted the relationships between sexu- ality and other dynamics of inequality. For example, Akkai Padmashali, a human rights activist based in India, has fought to link class, caste, gen- der, sexuality, religion, and ability politics. At the same time, she has faced challenges in bridging divides within social movements and has often felt excluded from activist spaces on the basis of class. Padmashali describes her story in the boxed text below. In the 2010s, transgender rights also became a major topic of main- stream discussion in the U.S., as described in Chapter 4 in regard to the “bathroom debates.” When North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory elimi- nated antidiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people in 2016, activists across the country responded vehemently in opposition. These injustices against transgender people, along with everyday forms of discrimination, have exposed new conflicts between different currents of U.S. feminist movements. Some middle-class, cisgender white feminists who identify as second-wave feminists have expressed discomfort with transgen- der rights. In 2015, Caitlyn Jenner, formerly Bruce Jenner, a reality television star and Olympic athlete, came out as transgender. In a controversial article in the New York Times, Elinor Burkett, a journalist and former women’s studies professor, referred to Caitlyn Jenner as him and argued against Jenner’s “notion . . . that some sort of gendered destiny is encoded in us,” saying, “that’s the kind of nonsense that was used to repress women for centuries” (2015: SR1). Transgender activists fired back against this characterization of Jenner, calling Burkett and her allies transphobic, or TERFs (Trans-Exclusionary Rad- ical Feminists). Transgender activists argued that TERFs were intolerant and abusive by making transgender people out to be suspect; questioning the true, essential nature of transgender people; and rejecting trans women as women, thus subjecting others’ bodies and identities to judgement and scrutiny. They argued that second-wave feminist terms were now being used to delegitimize, exploit, endanger, and mis-gender trans and gender-nonconforming people. That is, for many contemporary feminists, queer activists, and transactivists, this exclusionary, violent rush to mis-categorize people has reproduced and reified the same dominant binary oppressions that movements for gender identity and freedom of expression have struggled against for decades. In Samantha Allen’s 2013 article in Jacobin, she—as a trans woman— likens herself to an endangered species and criticizes TERFs’ practice of “openly discriminating against the transgendered while clinging to a reac- tionary definition of sex.” Allen’s contribution points to the continued tensions and divergences in feminist activism, as different currents must navigate and question the power of language, naming, and discourse as linked to material consequences, including emotional trauma, sexual vio- lence, and other mistreatment. This process is more difficult for some cur- rents than others, as these claims to legitimacy are historically rooted and culturally produced.

190 The Social Life of Gender Conclusion

This chapter has traced a number of debates that shaped the histories of femi- nist activism and women’s politics in the U.S. while also highlighting the socio- political context for particular struggles. By working through key examples, the chapter illustrated how power relations are intertwined with feminist activism. Women’s organizing in the United States has been influenced by conversations with global women’s movements, which have led to new articulations of the relationships among gender, class, race, nationality, and sexuality. Activists, organizers, scholars, and workers of different backgrounds approach the term feminist in very different ways. As the arguments between TERFs and transgender activists suggest, the term feminist can take on new meaning and create new forms of hierarchy and difference. Contemporary feminists sometimes echo Betty Friedan’s treatment of lesbians as a “lavender menace” by isolating and marginalizing those who fall into categories they view as challenging. Yet the history of activism around gender also provides lessons for a more just politics. Activism around gender relations is most powerful when it incorporates the variations in women’s experiences—and the variations in their marginalization. This chapter shifted away from the traditional metaphor of waves to instead conceptualize distinct moments in women’s organizing as currents. Whereas waves suggest a linear, chronological path, this chapter pointed to recurring trends and moments of resurgence and continuity over time. The notion of currents suggests overlap and interaction as opposed to the stricter demarcation between waves. Finally, the notion of currents breaks away from the idea that women’s activism is uniform in character in differ- ent time periods. Feminist activism is anything but monolithic or homoge- nous. Women’s political achievements are built through a long and complex history of struggle—but their story is not simply one of growth but also of divergence and tension. The currents of gender activism continue to move women’s variegated struggles both closer together and farther apart.

KEYWORDS Bread and roses 175 Feminist praxis 172 Second-wave feminism 172 Combahee River Collective 179 First-wave feminism 172 Third-wave feminism 172 Feminist 172 National Organization for Transnational feminisms 186 Feminist currents 172 Women (NOW) 177

QUESTIONS  When did you first hear the term feminist? it shed light on contemporary struggles In what context? Was it in a positive or around gender? negative light?  This chapter demonstrated long-standing  Did anything surprise you about the tensions but also solidarities among history of feminist movements? How does LGBTQ movements, labor movements,

Chapter 9 | Politicizing Gender 191 racial justice movements, and feminist  Consider the city/metropolitan area closest movements. What links have you observed to you. What place did it have in shaping among these areas of struggle? feminist movements? Was it home to any of the protests or struggles around labor,  Think about a version of feminism you’ve sexuality, or political rights discussed in encountered (e.g., in popular culture, on this chapter? Conduct some historical your campus, or in your own activism). research into your city’s connections to the Which currents were present? Which were history of feminist movements. not? Did you see any conflicts emerging among different groups or individuals?

ASSOCIATED READINGS  Alarcón, Norma. 1991. “The Theoretical Lesbian and Gay Marches on Washington. Subject(s) of This Bridge Called My Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Back and Anglo-American Feminism.”  Heng, Geraldine. 1997. “‘A Great Way In Criticism in the Borderlands: Studies in to Fly’: Nationalism, the State, and the Chicano Literature, Culture and Ideology, Varieties of Third-World Feminism.” In edited by Hector Calderon and Jose David Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Saldivar. Durham: Duke University Press. Democratic Futures, edited by M. Jacqui  Collins, Patricia Hill. 1990. Black Feminist Alexander and Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and 30–45. London, UK: Routledge. the Politics of Empowerment. New York:  Orleck, Annelise. 1995. Common Sense Routledge. and a Little Fire: Women and Working-Class  Delacoste, Frederique, and Priscilla Politics in the United States, 1900–1965. Alexander. 1998. Sex Work: Writings by Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Women in the Sex Industry. San Francisco: Press. Cleis Press.  Ray, Raka, and Anna Korteweg. 1999.  Desai, M. 2007. “The Messy Relationship “Movements in the Third World: Identity, between Feminisms and Globalizations.” Mobilization, and Autonomy.” Annual Gender & Society 21 (6): 797. Review of Sociology 25: 47–71S.  Federici, Silvia. (1975) 2012. Revolution  Thayer, Millie. 2001. “Transnational at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminism: Reading Joan Scott in the Feminist Struggle. Oakland: PM Press Brazilian Sertao.” Ethnography 2 (2): 243–271.  Friedan, Betty. 1963. The Feminine Mystique. New York: W.W. Norton.  Walker, Rebecca. 1992. “Becoming the Third Wave.” Ms. Magazine.  Ghaziani, Amin. 2008. The Dividends of Dissent: How Conflict and Culture Work in

NOTE 1. With feminist health care perpetually under threat, only about 15 of these clinics still exist today.

192 The Social Life of Gender